Still (mostly) a high school band, HOON have enjoyed success in Rockquest competitions and become established, passionate members of the local hardcore scene in Hamilton. The five guys want their music to make a statement, emotionally, sonically and in the case of recent single, Blood On Your Hands, politically. In what was a good round for artists from the Tron, NZ On Air Music also included the big-statement BCHC track on their February NewTracks compilation.
HOON is a Bridge City Hardcore band from Kirikiriroa Hamilton. We’re made up of our two guitarists Harry Gillies (rhythm) and Henare Snowling (lead), our drummer Chris Collett, bassist Ben Trass, and Taylor Neal who makes loud noises with his mouth and jumps into crowds.
Yep. We’re spread across Hillcrest High School, Rototuna High School and Vision College, while Taylor has graduated from Hillcrest and is now studying Music and Performing Arts at Wintec.
CC: The band formed as a school band for a concert at Hillcrest High. The school provided us with a lot, from daily rehearsal spaces to mentoring to equipment for gigs. Since then a lot of us have gone in different directions, Taylor’s graduated, Henare moved schools and Ben joined our band from another school. We’ve now progressed far past being a school band, but are still supported by the school and the connections we made.
Rockquest 2024 was a big moment for the band, we placed third in Waikato and from there we were picked up by Sara who runs youth gigs at Mesoverse. Mesoverse is pretty much just a tiny door in the wall, it’s got a tiny little area inside, perfect for gigs where you can really connect with the audience, which is what Bridge City Hardcore is all about.
Once we settled into that BCHC scene we really got our rhythm, and by 2025 we were playing loads of gigs across Hamilton and Auckland. When Rockquest came around again in 2025 we knew our goal. We just wanted to turn the whole thing upside down and win.
As the drummer, I had a really weird dream a few months before Rockquest where we had a huge wall of death and completely changed what Rockquest was in the Waikato – instead of just having everyone sit down and watch silently like usual. So we wrote the heaviest breakdown imaginable and orchestrated the wall of death on social media beforehand. The heats came around, and when Taylor got on stage and gave the order during the breakdown, the place went wild!
After that, Rockquest wasn’t the same. The day of the regional finals we got a text from RQP with a photo of the venue. They had moved the chairs out and made a moshpit. Went went on to win Rockquest regionals in Waikato, while two heavy bands similar to us (Conspyre and Ballerina Riot) came second and third. Soon they were in our scene and Waikato was being dominated by BCHC bands. Since then we’ve performed at the Rockquest National Finals in Auckland and have been playing heaps of great gigs.
TN: That was my idea. Unfortunately there were a lot of nicotine addicted juniors and stuff walking around being like, “Can I get a hoon?” I don’t know, I thought it had a ring to it, it’s a very NZ kind of word and it’s memorable. It wasn’t like a big decision, I just suggested it and it stuck.
We all had our own genres and backgrounds originally, which have all come together to create our unique sound. We don’t necessarily compromise, but instead bring together ideas from different genres to create our songs. Our first song was fairly standard metal, but when we heard Taylor’s vocals for the first time at a lunchtime concert at school everything changed. Taylor ran out and just screamed his brains out, and suddenly we became a hardcore band.
TN: We just put out our debut album, which is a big achievement for us. I’m really proud of it. I produced and mixed all of it, and for the conditions of the recording it sounds pretty good. We recently did a gig in Auckland where we played the entirety of it which was really cool. It’s a great mix of unique songs.
TN: We usually perform at least two gigs a month, at most three. They are all one off shows, nothing we’ve booked ourselves. People ask for us to play, and if we dig it we play. Simple as that. The Hamilton BCHC scene is really good because everyone who goes to your shows will most likely end up being a friend of yours in some way, shape or form. That sense of community has really pushed us farther than we ever could’ve gone without it.
TN: It used to be in the big school rehearsal space in the music department at school, we wrote all of our songs for the album there. Since Ben and Henare now go to a different school and I’m out of high school we use Ben’s place as a rehearsal space. It’s pretty decked out with equipment.
CC: Blood On Your Hands is just one of the best songs we’ve written, it’s stronger than the others in a lot of ways and has a really meaningful message behind it. We have older songs that are more well known, but it felt like a waste to just remaster a song we already have a recording for. There was a lot of room to elevate Blood On Your Hands with the studio recording as well.
TN: After the music was done, I wanted to focus on real events happening in our country at the moment. Politics and current events have been a driving force behind my lyrics all throughout HOON’s career. I wrote it after the choice of the NZ government to not recognise Palestine as a state, even while they are undergoing a mass genocide. I feel it’s important to talk about, if I have the chance to say something on a song that will be heard by a large group of people, I want it to be something real and important.
TN: Probably the breakdown riff. That one’s mine, I was playing around with stacked 4ths to see what would happen, and it just sounded unbelievably stupid, so I had to use it. I also love how it jumps from one tempo to another really fast, kind of feeling like it’s dragging you to the depths of hell. I think it’s neat.
HG: For me It’s definitely the breakdown. With Hoon’s breakdowns we ALWAYS have panic chords, there is not a single HOON breakdown without panic chords! Back to the question though, the breakdown just makes people wanna headbang till they can’t anymore.
CC: I love to play the drum part for the main riff right after the intro. It’s just such an interesting and complicated part and fits into the riff really well. When it comes around the second time there’s an awesome solo that just makes it even better. We were in the studio with a few minutes left and we felt like the section was missing something the second time around. We told Henare and he smashed out the solo that you hear on the track in 15 minutes from scratch.
TN: We worked with Scott Seabright, who has worked on a few of Alien Weaponry‘s records (who we are huge fans of). We recorded it in this little home studio he had beneath his house just outside of Auckland. I remember we had from 10am to 5pm to record, and we got all the tracks done by 3pm. Scott was looking around nervously being like, “So – does anyone want to add anything?!” That’s when we added the solo and this really ominous strings part in the intro.
TN: To just be aware of how our government is acting. I want people to understand that politicians are the last people to trust, especially when they think they have the power to disregard the state of Palestine at a time like this.
CC: Blood On Your Hands has a really important message about raising awareness, but also shows support to those affected by this issue. The song really resonated with one of my friends specifically who’s from Palestine. The song was really important to him, and it was cool to see him share the song around during his time in Palestine in January, it actually felt like we were making a real difference.
TN: We had written the song shortly after everything for the album had been finished. We thought about putting it on the album, but we thought it would be better suited just as a non-album single. Plus, the production Scott did doesn’t nearly match the production I did on the album, I still have a lot of work to do! Blood On Your Hands is just a sick single to put out anyway.
TN: It’s been received really well from our fanbase. I’ve seen a few songs added to Spotify playlists, and people love to share them around with each other. Plus they go wild for songs like One Bullet live. Through the recording of the album I think I learnt how to get the best out of a small time frame. I was working on it in-between classes at school, so I really only had a few hours a day to do so. I also need to not scoop the mids so much…
TN: I want that to be State Of Decay off of the album. It’s got really intricate parts to it and really pretty clean sections, I’d love to go into more of that post hardcore direction later on if given the chance.
CC: State of Decay definitely feels very unique and would be an interesting route to pursue, but there’s no doubt we’ll always be writing hyper-energetic songs that go hard live, like One Bullet and The Suffering.
TN: We are fully independent LOL. We share our Instagram account. As far as mentors go, Mervyn Cook (my music teacher) was really good at pushing us to go further, and was one of the first people to really see a future in us. I respect him highly.
Martial Law: Running Late
Cease And Desist: Grieving The Dead
Mark My Words: Tears
TN: There’s this one guy who goes by the name ‘Mic The Snare’ on YouTube. He makes these really insightful videos on popular musicians discographies, and I’ve found out a lot of stuff thanks to those videos. I listen to them while I cook dinner.
Follow our Insta and listen to ‘To Live is to Suffer’ and Blood On Your Hands on whatever platform you want. Most importantly come along to the gigs and be a part of the hardcore scene. The community is really welcoming, come along, make some friends and try not to die in the pit.
There’s a new merch drop coming, so if you want to support the band and get some cool merch then definitely check out the merch at gigs, it goes a long way for us. Go and get involved in whatever music scene you want, it’s sick.
Thanks for checking out this group of teenagers making loud noises.
